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Quick Update: Hip and Cancer

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Spring at Wynn and Luna's      As of yesterday, I've been home six weeks.  In this time, I've gotten significantly stronger, but I still have a ways to go.   No more walker and the rental wheelchair has been returned.  I need to use a cane, but am trying to get around the house without it for increasing longer periods.  (My limp is  significant, however.  Gotta work on that.) Wound vac...gone two weeks ago.  This was a big step forward for me.  No more being attached to a 4 lb. pump by 4 feet of tubing. The incision is slowly healing and I only have to see the wound care PT once a week now. IV antibiotics...done last week.  Now I'm on three oral antibiotics, but with the end of home IV treatments, I'm done dealing with tubes.  The hospital bed was returned three weeks ago because I am strong enough to make it up our stairs.   After a few practice runs, I'm back to driving.  PT 3x/week continues to...
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Because Stage 4 Cancer Isn't Enough-Part 2

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       As I sit down to try to write Part 2, I'm finding it difficult to put my thoughts together.  I haven't yet wrapped my head around the events of Part 1, and even wonder if I don't have some post-traumatic stress going on.  Thinking that, with the home physical therapist's directions, I was walking around, including stairs, with a broken femur for four days makes me cringe .  On top of that, due to the fracture, I bled so much into my hip that my hemoglobin fell to 5.0 g/dL, (normal range for women is 12.0-15.5 g/dL).  The American Association of Blood Banks' guidelines recommend transfusion at  7-8 g/dL. Although I received four units of blood before the second surgery, as I said good-bye to Wynn, Nathan and Nina, I worried that I would not make it out of that surgery OK.            The second surgery with my new orthopedic surgeon, Dr. J., went well.  Here's the X-ray:   ...
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More Testing, Second Opinions, and Exercise

         Following the initial imaging studies, (CTs, MRIs, bone scan), what we needed was a piece of tumor to confirm that I had adenocarcinoma of the lung, which had spread.   So a couple of days after going to the ER, I was back at the hospital for a liver biopsy.   Apparently, getting a piece of liver is easier, safer and less painful than a lung or bone biopsy.   I have to say that in the big picture of life, the biopsy was pretty easy.   Waiting for the results was much harder.   First I had to wait to confirm that I have adenocarcinoma before we could send it to a specialty cancer genetics lab in California for tumor mutation analysis.   By Wednesday, December 19 th , my cells were headed to sunny California.   These results would take about a week and would direct treatment � either the pill, or traditional chemotherapy.            In the mean time, my well-con...
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